ISRO Chairman Dr.K.Radhakrishnan with Former Chairmen Prof.U.R.Rao and Dr. K.Kasturirangan watching the LAM test firing operation from the spacecraft control centre.

The 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) of India’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, last fired on December 01, 2013, was successfully fired for a duration of 3.968 seconds at 1430 hrs IST today (September 22, 2014). This operation of the spacecraft’s main liquid engine was also used for the spacecraft’s trajectory correction and changed its velocity by 2.18 metre/second. With this successful test firing, Mars Orbiter Insertion (MOI) operation of the spacecraft is scheduled to be performed on the morning of September 24, 2014 at 07:17:32 hrs IST by firing the LAM along with eight smaller liquid engines for a duration of about 24 minutes.

Many of you may be wondering how the MOM and MAVEN missions to Mars are different. If you had questions like I had about this please follow the link below to the Planetary Society Blog where Planetary Scientist Emily Lakdawalla explains the difference very clearly along with the “Basics of Space Flight” by David Doody . It is a very good online resource for knowing about Space flight. You can also download the book Basics of Space Flight and read it.

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) of ISRO is entering a crucial phase on the 24th of September 2014 when the Spacecraft will be inserted into the orbit of Mars after travelling 653 Million Kilometers. Just to remind you:

On June 30, 2004 (PDT), as mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory held their collective breath, the international Cassini-Huygens mission successfully arrived in orbit around Saturn. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft delivered the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe to Titan in early 2005. Cassini completed its four-year primary mission in 2008 and went on to perform dozens more flybys of Titan, Enceladus and Saturn’s other icy moons through its 10th anniversary in 2014. The mission may continue through 2017.

The Harvest Moon has some interesting aspects to it; how it rises differently from other full Moons, and how we often perceive it as it rises. Learn about that and more as Dave shares insight into this “Super Moon” visible as a Harvest Moon, and why the size isn’t quite what it seems (even if it’s “super” this month). See what’s up in the night sky every week with “Eyes on the Sky” videos, astronomy made easy.

“Welcome to Mars” follows the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity from the second they crash-land on the planet to many months into their ongoing mission. NOVA producer Mark Davis covered the story from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as it unfolded and provided a unique, behind-the-scenes take on this voyage of discovery, whose primary goal is to find evidence that liquid water once existed on Mars.

Mars Orbiter Mission was launched on the 5th of November at 14:38 pm from SDHC, SHAR, Sriharikota. This is India’s first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with an orbiter craft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit. The Mission is primarily a technological mission considering the critical mission operations and stringent requirements on propulsion and other bus systems of spacecraft. One of the main objectives of the first Indian mission to Mars is to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.

Today one of our staff at school came up to me and asked me about the 27th of August when there will be two full moons in the sky. He had got this information circulating on ‘whatsapp’ . The rumour has it that one of the planets viz., Mars will appear as big as the moon and as if it were another moon. First of all for those of you who have taken this news seriously please note there is going to be only a thin crescent moon in the sky on that night. This is a Hoax –Do not Believe this news and waste your time on the 27th. Mars can never ever appear as large as a full moon as seen from Earth. The moon is much closer than Mars which appears like a red starlike point and is much further away from Earth.